Press Pass:

If you haven’t started a blog yet, it’s time. Blogging comes with benefits.

I went to the Web 2.o Expo this week in San Francisco, a “gathering of geeks,” if you will. So as such, of course, it had a fabulous blogger lounge that was anything but geeky. Free massages, Wii on a big screen, music by Pandora, free drinks and–best of all–networking with other bloggers.

Of course, not every conference you go to is going to have a rockin’ blog lounge like the 2.o Expo. But blogging for your business or blogging about your industry gives you opportunities and a level of credibility with others that you wouldn’t have had otherwise. It also gives you access to a whole new network of people whom you would have had no excuse to talk to before. And of course, for those of you searching for someone to talk about you and your business, blogs are a vast new outlet to receive online coverage of your business.

I’m a small fish in a big sea of bloggers, but my various blogs never cease to serve up great contacts for me. Even on a person-to-person level (the real-life stuff), I’m able to meet people because of my blog. We have blogger dinners in our community, local blog networks and, of course, the huge network of bloggers available on the World Wide Web.

So if you’ve been putting off starting your business blog or blogging about a niche in your industry you are passionate about–it’s time.

Ready to start your blog? A few blog resources for you: Wordpress.com, Typepad.com, MoveableType.com, Blogger.com. And for more options, I Googled “Blog Service.”

Happy blogging!

Yes they did.
And they’ll do it again.
So what do you do?

When you are in business and you put yourself in the public sphere, you are going to have to accept not only praise but also criticism. Especially in the blogosphere. So how do you deal with the bad stuff? Go crying to your mama?

Someone took offense to five words of our marketing copy and wrote a 1,000-word rant on her blog. In this case in particular, I have vacillated a bit. As a staff we said our naughty words and then laughed about it. But this particular situation was a little trickier. This blogger didn’t know something about us that was about to benefit the blogger in a big way. I had recommended this particular blogger as a feature for our first magazine, which will launch in her area in June. That means her blog had a full-page feature in a magazine going to almost 200,000 people directly in her market. We had also slated her as a MamaVote featured blogger this summer.

My first impulse is to take vengeance–if she hates us so much, I will pull it, feature someone else and make sure to let her know she missed out. Once I find my Zen place, I say–who cares, I’ll leave it in. I thought her blog had value before, so I’m not going to change it just because she didn’t play nice on the playground. But as we try to take the “high road,” it doesn’t really make us feel any better that we were trashed on her blog.

But I toss this question out to everyone else: What do you do when people say bad things about you or your business in the public sphere? What should your response be? How will you react?

Do you post back on their blog? I chose not to. Who needs online “mommy gang wars”?
Do you mark them as enemy number one to your company? Not a productive use of your resources.
Do you pretend it never happened? While I’d like to, it made for a good blog post.
Do you correct misconceptions? I’d say yes. A follow up e-mail clearing up any inconsistencies is a good idea. But don’t bring on the war!

I wanted better advice on how to handle bad blogger press, and I happened across a good video from Seth Godin right here on Entrepreneur.com–check it out! I couldn’t have asked for more timely information: “Negative Press as a Way of the Online World”

To go the extra mile, I even emailed Godin about our bully on the playground. His response: “It’s not that bad! Comment or write a polite note.”

Lesson for us: It usually looks worse to you and your staff when someone kicks your baby. Buck up!

Lesson for bloggers: You never know what bridges you are about to set ablaze when you blog. Think before you post. For sweet justice, I know that one day I will be seated next to the woman I dedicated a 1,000 word blog post to! I’m sure it will be on an airplane or somewhere uncomfortable!

But what I want to know is how would you handle bad blogger press? I want to hear from the PR pros and novices alike!